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Commonwealth or Empire 



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Commonwealth or Empire 



A BYSTANDER'S VIEW OF 
THE QUESTION 



BY 

GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. 

EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY ; AUTHOR OF 

"THE UNITED STATES," "THE UNITED KINGDOM; 

A POLITICAL HISTORY," ETC. 



Netugorft 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1902 

All right* reserved 



E7/3 



Copyright, iqos. 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and clectrotyped March, 1902. 

To Replace lost ooj>y 

APR 12 1944" 



NorfoooU ?|3rcs8 

J. 8. Cuehing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

In the last Presidential election issues were 
mixed. The verdict consequently was uncer- 
tain. Which issue was paramount was a 
question greatly debated among Americans. 
Some said currency was paramount, and voted 
against a debasement of the coin which would 
no doubt .have led to commercial disaster, and 
could have attractions only as a measure of par- 
tial relief, at a period of depression and suffer- 
ing from mortgage debt. Alarm was at the same 
time created and votes probably were deter- 
mined by language menacing to the Supreme 
Court and judicial authority in general, as well 
as by denunciations of the action of the Federal 
Government in the suppression of labour riots. 
But let the paramount Issue for Americans 
be what it might, for the world at large it 



2 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

was and is that between the Commonwealth 
and Empire. Shall the American Republic be 
what it has hitherto been, follow its own des- 
tiny, and do what it can to fulfil the special 
hopes which humanity has founded on it; or 
shall it slide into an imitation of European 
Imperialism, and be drawn, with the military 
powers of Europe, into a career of conquest 
and domination over subject races, with the 
political liabilities which such a career entails? 
This was and is the main issue for humanity. 
Seldom has a nation been brought so distinctly 
as the American nation now is to the parting 
of the ways. Never has a nation's choice been 
more important to mankind. 

Against the Commonwealth three forces, 
distinct but convergent, are now arrayed. 
They are Plutocracy, Militarism, and Impe- 
rialism. The three instinctively conspire; to 
the plutocrat Imperialism is politically conge- 
nial, while he feels that militarism impregnates 
society with a spirit of conservatism, and may 
in case of a conflict of classes furnish a useful 
force of repression. 

Puritan New England could not last, though 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 3 

it formed the foundation and has left traces 
of itself in the moral force which in this elec- 
tion offered a notable resistance to the tidal 
wave. The Puritan settlement and the United 
States in general were bound to undergo the 
influences of the world's progress, share the ad- 
vance of thought, and be embraced in the world- 
unifying influences of electricity and steam. 
Before the close of the seventeenth century, 
in fact, vital change had set in. The origi- 
nal elements were largely diluted by foreign 
inflow, though this has been assimilated to a 
wonderful extent. Still, the American Repub- 
lic was the home of democracy and the hope 
of labour. It promised to do something more 
than the Old World toward correcting the injus- 
tice of nature, equalizing the human lot, and 
making the community a community indeed. 
The eyes of the masses everywhere were turned 
to it. To the enemies of equality and popular 
government it was an object of aversion and 
alarm. Loud, almost frenzied, was the shout 
of exultation with which, at the outbreak of 
Secession, Aristocracy and Plutocracy in Eu- 
rope hailed its apparent fall. It had remained 



4 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

free from Socialism, other than imported, thus 
proving the soundness of its principle, which 
is that of freedom, self-help, and self-develop- 
ment under the necessary restraints of the law. 
Nowhere is English life better or more 
attractive than in a country parish, with a kind 
and conscientious squire, good ladies, an active 
pastor, a well-to-do tenantry, and a contented 
peasantry. Yet passing from this to an Amer- 
ican village, an observer felt that he had come 
to something which had more of the true spirit 
of a community. He felt that by the social 
equality and general friendliness which pre- 
vailed, by the spontaneous obedience to law 
which had no force to support it but that of 
a single constable, by the general intelligence 
and the common interest in public questions, 
one step at least had been made towards some- 
thing like the fulfilment of the social ideal. 
In the great cities, besides the special influences 
of city life, there were unassimilated immigra- 
tion and de-Americanized wealth. But, setting 
aside these two elements, there was more of the 
community in an American than in a Euro- 
pean city, and this in spite of municipal mis- 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 5 

government carried in some cases to an extent 
which all deplore. 

If the Commonwealth partly lost its old 
Puritan support in the East, in the West there 
had been developed a social and political ele- 
ment more energetically democratic, while it 
was entirely free from ecclesiastical restraint. 
The thoroughly American spirit of the West 
was shown by the part which it played on the 
side of the Union in the Civil War. Its tem- 
per is radically opposed to anything monarchi- 
cal or aristocratic; and if it has on this 
occasion voted for a policy of aggrandizement 
and war, the cause seems to be rather a vehe- 
mence of character still breathing of frontier 
life, than anything which would render the 
West more prone to Imperialism than New 
England. 

There appeared to be the best reason, at 
all events, for hoping that humanity had here 
been finally rid of two of its greatest banes in 
the Old World, — standing armies and State 
Churches. Of State Churches it had apparently 
seen the last vestige depart when religious 
liberty and equality finally triumphed over the 



6 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

lingering vestiges of Puritan ecclesiasticism in 
New England; though the intermeddling of 
Churches with politics, which is another phase 
of the same evil, unhappily had not ceased. Of 
the growth of a standing army, it seemed, there 
could be no danger when there was no danger 
of war ; the only military force necessary being 
one sufficient to secure at need the ascendency 
of order in a Commonwealth which was daily 
receiving foreign elements little imbued with 
the freeman's respect for law. The vast army 
called out in defence of the Union against Se- 
cession remained in spirit an army of citizens ; 
the war over, it was disbanded with perfect 
ease, and fell back into the ranks of industry, 
much to the amazement and not a little to the 
disappointment of European ill-wishers of the 
Republic, who, looking to European experience, 
fancied that a despotism founded on the sup- 
port of the victorious soldiery must be the 
outcome of the war. It seemed that peace 
might be preached to all nations and govern- 
ments more effectually than any International 
Conference could preach it by the spectacle 
of a mighty nation thriving beyond the other 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 7 

nations by industry and living on friendly 
terms with all its fellows, yet respected by the 
world, and influencing the world by its example. 
If the national life which had produced and 
which sustained the institutions, civilization, and 
wealth of the United States was not "strenu- 
ous " in the way of aggression and destruction, 
there was anotherway in which it was strenuous 
in the highest degree. If compared with old 
war powers it lacked the glory of war, at least 
of wars of rapine, it did not lack the glory of 
peace and home. 

But a new force has come upon the scene, 
that of Plutocracy, which, if its power contin- 
ues to increase, must work a serious change 
in the spirit of institutions, though it may 
be without disturbing Republican forms and 
names. The productions of a new and im- 
mensely rich continent, rapidly developed and 
manipulated commercially by master hands, 
railway and telegraph construction on the 
largest scale, financial speculation on a scale 
equally large, combined with the action of 
protective tariffs, which have enabled groups 
of capitalists to take toll of the consumer, 



8 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

have given birth to fortunes unprecedented 
in their magnitude, and having, through the 
influence wielded by their possessors over 
the financial and commercial world, a con- 
stant tendency to increase. There is now an 
apparent prospect of still further concentra- 
tion, and of fortunes still more swollen, since 
the forces of commercial and industrial aggre- 
gation have begun to work, creating gigantic 
Trusts, the largest share of the profits of 
which fall to those by whom the Trust is 
organized and managed. The revenues of 
one of the multimillionnaires already exceed 
those of kings. They far exceed the reve- 
nues of that Thellusson estate, the magnitude 
of which frightened the British Parliament into 
an Act restricting accumulations for the future. 
The power of wealth in the present age 
is great. Nor can we easily see what there 
will be to balance it. Religious aspirations, 
which hitherto have formed at least some- 
thing of a counter-charm, are visibly losing 
their force. If Humanitarian aspirations are 
destined ever to supply their place, as the 
votaries of a religion of Humanity believe. 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 9 

that hour has not yet come; nor is there 
anything at present to herald its speedy 
coming. Wealth, with little regard to its 
source, is becoming almost an object of our 
social worship. Intellect, literary or scientific, 
culture, and art may still keep up a struggle 
against riches for social ascendency, but they 
will hardly be able to hold their own. Popu- 
larity the multimillionnaire purchases with 
ease, at a cost which to him is no sacrifice; 
while the community, even when the munifi- 
cence is the noblest, is put rather too much in 
the attitude of receiving alms. 

That money can command Legislatures and 
Municipalities is too well known. Of this 
every day produces proofs. Over tariff legis- 
lation the nation seems to lose control, so 
great is the power of a group of protected 
interests bringing their pressure to bear in 
concert upon Congress. The influence of 
money in elections is not disguised. A Senator- 
ship of the United States has been almost 
openly bought. To carry a Presidential elec- 
tion, the party of the rich puts a vast fund 
into skilful hands. Wealth can take posses- 



lO COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

sion of the organs of the press, and through 
them influence opinion; for though a journal, 
to keep up its circulation, must study public 
sentiment, it may reciprocally mould that sen- 
timent, not only through its editorials but per- 
haps still more through its version of the 
news. Very great, notoriously, has been the 
power of Railway Companies in California 
and elsewhere ; and this power is practically 
wielded by a few hands. We should be most 
unwilling to believe that the Universities, as 
seems in some quarters to be feared, are in 
danger of plutocratic domination. 

There is no use in raving about anything. 
At the same time there is no use in denying 
that the inordinate accumulation of wealth, 
with the irresponsible power attached to it, 
in a few hands, is dangerous to society and to 
the State. We are told that this tendency 
is natural; that it is the result of economic 
forces against which it is vain to contend. 
Other things are natural which yet are not 
blessings, and which, if we could, we would 
avert. The present tendency to overcrowding 
in cities is natural, desirable it is not. 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE II 

Only an economical anarchist will desire 
to array class against class, labour against 
capital; to interfere with the discharge by 
the capitalist of his necessary function in the 
conduct of industry; to withhold from him 
his fair gains; or to deprive him of his just 
influence in the political sphere. To the 
capitalist, as society now is, we must owe 
the organization of great enterprises and the 
execution of great works. Yet it would surely 
be an evil day for the community on which 
supreme power should pass into the irre- 
sponsible hands of accumulated wealth. To 
some such consummation, however, things 
seem now to be tending as they tended to 
territorial lordship at the opening of the feudal 
era. 

Much of this wealth has unquestionably 
been made by undertakings beneficial to the 
community. Some has been made in ways 
not so beneficial. But the best of millionnaires 
has heirs, whose characters, cradled in idle- 
ness and luxury, would be ill trusted with 
power over the State. The feudal Lord had 
duties, social, political, and military, so on- 



12 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

erous that in the opinion of an eminent his- 
torian their mere burden shortened Hfe. The 
modern British land-owner has local duties 
which, if not so onerous as those of the feudal 
Lord, still help to save him from becom- 
ing a mere sybarite. The heir of a financial 
millionnaire has no such salt of necessary duty 
to save his character from corruption. 

It is vain to rail at a class for following its 
natural bent. The plutocratic class, after all, is 
doing no more. But its natural bent is anti- 
democratic. Its ostentatious prodigality and 
luxury are a defiance of democratic sentiment 
and subversive of democratic manners. At 
heart it sighs for a court and aristocracy. It 
worships anything royal or aristocratic. It 
barters the hands of its daughters and its 
millions for European titles. It imitates, and 
even outvies in some things, the gilding of 
European nobility. Its social centre is gradu- 
\ ally shifting from America, where its inclina- 

s 

tions are still in some measure controlled, to 
England, where it can get more homage 
and subserviency for its wealth, take hold on 
the mantle of high society, hope perhaps in 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 



13 



the end to win its way to the circle of Royalty, 
and even, if it becomes naturalized, itself to 
wear a coronet or a star. 

Pitt tried to transplant aristocracy to Canada. 
He failed, as Fox told him he would ; the plant 
would not take root in the soil of the New 
World. Yet a way of introducing aristocracy 
into the New World without actual transplan- 
tation has been found. British Peerages, 
Baronetcies, Knighthoods, and minor badges 
of rank, besides showers of military decorations, 
are conferred on Colonists. Americans natu- 
ralized by a residence of two years in Canada 
become eligible to these distinctions. More 
than one of them has been knighted. Nor 
does the little Court of Ottawa fail to attract 
American courtiers to its shrine. The Cana- 
dian Calendar comprehends a list of titled 
Canadians which forms a miniature Peerage. 

The craving for aristocracy goes so high 
that the furniture of a house in an American 
city, because a duke has lived in it, fetches 
extraordinary prices, while there is special 
eagerness to buy a chair in which His Grace 
can be proved to have sat. There is an Amer- 



14 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

ican " Burke " containing, we are told, upwards 
of seven hundred coats of arms of American 
families, with their lions rampant, helmets, men 
in armour, and feudal mottoes. On the other 
hand British aristocracy opens its arms to the 
new aspirant, particularly when its acres are 
mortgaged. The American who offered a 
large fee to any English lady of title who 
would push his daughter in high society, might 
have saved his money. His bank account 
would have sufficed. 

The political colours of American pluto- 
cracy were plainly shown on the occasion of 
the South African war. The drawing rooms 
of New York at once declared themselves on 
the side of the drawing rooms of London, and 
a concert, given practically in aid of the war, 
was attended, we were told, by the whole world 
of New York fashion. 

Of the furtive extinction of popular govern- 
ment without change of constitutional forms 
by the action of wealth, we have at least one 
historic example. It was thus that Florence 
was converted from a Republic into a Princi- 
pality under the absolute government of the 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 15 

Medici. The head of the house of Medici 
accumulated an enormous fortune ; won popu- 
larity by the crafty munificence with which 
he expended a part of it; bought up all the 
springs of government ; and was thus enabled 
to bequeath a virtual despotism to his son. 
His usurpation, it is right to say, was aided by 
the unwise and unrighteous ambition of his 
countrymen, who, by trampling on the liberty 
of Pisa and other sister communities, had im- 
paired the spirit of liberty in themselves, as 
well as by the factious turbulence of Florentine 
democracy which made quiet citizens long for 
repose. The example and the warning of 
Florence are on a very small scale ; so was the 
fortune of Cosmo de' Medici compared with 
those the influence of which is now growing 
in the American Republic. 

We can see how wealth might, in a mer- 
cenary age, without any formal change of 
the American constitution, practically pos- 
sess itself of supreme power. The process 
may almost be said to have already begun. 
Power is evidently settling in the Senate, 
which is more permanent than the popular 



l6 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

House, less unwieldy, and better organized; 
the House, owing to its unmanageable num- 
ber, the shortness of the tenure, the conse- 
quent inexperience of members, and the lack 
of efificient organization, being comparatively 
unable to bring its force to bear. It is 
manifest that elections to Senatorships can be 
controlled by wealth. By the equality of the 
small to the large States in representation, 
an oligarchical character is given to the body. 
The mode of election, not by popular vote, 
but by a conclave, facilitates personal corrup- 
tion. The people may desire to change the 
mode, but the Senate has practically power 
to withhold the question from their vote, 
while the equal representation of the small 
States, which would naturally be the most 
venal, is placed beyond the power of amend- 
ment. The President may be and indeed 
has been brought greatly under the sway 
of the Senate. If to anyone such a forecast 
seems visionary, let him ask himself whether a 
few years ago he could have dreamed that the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence 
would be discarded and almost derided; that 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 17 

dominion over other races would be forcibly 
assumed ; and that American citizens would 
be heard passionately calling upon their Gov- 
ernment to shoot down as rebels people 
struggling for their independence against a 
foreign yoke. 

Millionnairism was for some time disunited 
and timTcT shrinking from any visible exer- 
cise of its influence and even from bringing 
itself under the public eye. It is now becom- 
ing at once bolder and more united. It is 
learning to turn its wealth into power. In 
the late contest its union seems to have been 
almost complete. Even a Silver King obeyed, 
against the bias of individual interest, the 
stronger bias of his class. 

The violence of the rupture between the 
American Colonies of Great Britain and their 
Mother Country was in itself infinitely to be 
deplored ; but it had a redeeming feature ; it 
preserved American originality, which, had the 
filial connection continued, might have been 
gradually lost. The American Colonies, after 
all, were shoots thrown off from a full-grown 
civilization. The general indication of history 



■aV.^., , y.^. 



1 8 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

is that greatness comes, not from such offsets, 
but from the wild stock which has the germ 
of independent hfe in itself. The Greater 
Greece was much the lesser in everything 
but bulk. So far as we can see, Carthage, 
though an enlarged, was an inferior Tyre. 
Little, except of a material kind, has hitherto 
come of colonies in later days owing their 
birth to adult civilization, such as those of 
Spain, Portugal, Holland, or France. The 
American Colonies of Great Britain were 
founded, not merely by emigration, but by 
secession, religious, political, or social, and 
were ultimately torn away from the Mother 
Country by a political convulsion. These 
things together seemed to give them a life 
of their own. A marked and even bitter 
antagonism was for some time the result. 
This, so far as the American Plutocracy is 
concerned, is now giving way to the force of 
social attraction. That the ancient antago- 



nism should cease, that all its traces should 
be effaced, and its bitterness be replaced by 
perfect amity, is what right-minded men on 
both sides desire and do their best to bring 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 19 

about. But it is not desirable, either for 
America or for humanity, that American civili- 
zation should be reabsorbed into that of the 
Old Country or that the original and inde- 
pendent life of America should be lost. 



The rapid growth of plutocratic influence 
is peculiar, in intensity at least, to the United 
States. But America is also struck by the 
sudden gust of Militarism and Imperialism 
which threatens to reverse the progress made 
by reason, economical government, and inter- 
national morality during the last half century ; 
to give the world up again to the demon of 
war; to arm every nation against the rest; 
to take the bread from the mouth of labour 
and spend it in the apparatus of destruction. 
There seems to have come over us a sort of 
satiety of civilization, a hankering for a return 
to robust barbarism with its reign of force and 
disregard of moral ties. Churches, most of 
them, are carried away by the prevailing im- 
pulse, and lend the sanction of the Gospel to 
the love of war. The change of sentiment 



20 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

extends even to sports. Prize-fighting comes 
again into vogue; and a prize-fight has been 
attended by women. Of each of the principal 
European nations a vast proportion is in arms, 
withdrawn from productive industry, the fruits 
of which it consumes ; though between the 
people of one nation and the people of another 
there is no assignable cause of quarrel. Those 
who hold the theory of tides in human history, 
may point to this as a tidal wave. But the 
chief cause of the cataclysm probably is the 
weakening by scepticism of our allegiance to 
religious principles of humanity and fraternity 
which hitherto have not only been formally 
held sacred, but retained a certain amount 
of real force. In the age of Machiavel an 
eclipse of religious faith was attended by a 
loosening of morality. The present eclipse 
of religious faith seems to be producing a 
similar effect. A writer, defending the an- 
nexation of Cuba in defiance of pledges, says 
that " if morality is outraged, it must look for 
compensation elsewhere." He gives frank 
expression to a growing sentiment. 

We all know that war is, and till human 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 21 

nature shall have been greatly changed, will 
be necessary for self-defence or for the police 
of nations. We all know that the profession 
of arms is consequently indispensable. We all 
know that the character of the soldier has its 
special virtues, with which society could hardly 
afford to part; though the soldier's unreason- 
ing submission to discipline is a different thing 
from a freeman's reasonable submission to law ; 
while the idea that the discipline of the camp 
is the only discipline is belied by the service of 
our railways, our mercantile marine, and all oui' 
great industrial establishments. But now come 
teachers, ecclesiastical dignitaries among the 
number, who tell us that war is not only an 
occasional necessity, but a good thing in itself, 
and a moral tonic "saving nations from the 
eatinof canker of those vices which too often 
grow up in a long continuance of peace." The 
words are those of an eminent English ecclesi- 
astic who does not shrink from quoting such 
lines as, — 

" That God's most perfect instrument, 
In working out a pure intent, 
Is man arrayed for mutual slaughter 
Yea, Carnage is His daughter." 



22 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

" War," says the same writer in a high-strung 
passage, " is but the collective form of the age- 
long, unceasing conflict of the human race 
against the usurpations of tyrannous evil. It 
is a fraction of that Armageddon struggle, 
described in the Apocalypse, in which the Son 
of God rides forth at the head of all His saints 
to subdue the machinations of the devil and 
his angels." Such language held in such a 
quarter surely warns us of the existence of an 
extraordinary excitement against which we shall 
do well to be on our guard. 

" There are whole books of the Old Testa- 
ment," we are told, " which ring with the clash 
of conflict." There are books of the Old 
Testament which ring with the shrieks of the 
people of Canaanitish cities butchered without 
regard for age or sex by an invading tribe, or 
with the groans of the inhabitants of captured 
towns tortured by the conqueror in brick kilns 
or under harrows of iron. There are also pass- 
ages of tribal or priestly ferocity, such as the 
murder of Sisera or the slaying of Agag. But 
the ideal Hebrew polity is not militarist. It is 
much the reverse. The Jew is bidden, trusting 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 23 

in God, to do his duty in battle for his country, 
which was threatened on all sides by aggressive 
powers; but there is to be no standing army, 
only the national militia called out by the 
officers of the tribes, with captains appointed 
for the occasion. Nor is service compulsory ; 
the man who has built a new house and not 
dedicated it, the man who has planted a vine- 
yard and has not eaten of it, the man who 
has betrothed a wife and not taken her, are 
discharged ; so is any man who will plead that 
he is fearful and faint-hearted (Deut. xx. 1-9). 
There is no special exaltation, as at Rome, 
of prowess in war; no heaven like that of 
the Koran for those who die fighting for the 
true God. National defence is a duty ; but the 
blessing, even of the Old Testament, is Peace. 

We are told that in the New Testament 
Christ and John the Baptist recognize war 
and the soldier's trade. No doubt they do. 
Their object was to change, not institutions, 
•but the heart. If they had succeeded in 
changing the heart of all mankind, there 
would have been an end of the soldiers trade. 

Again a learned professor writes : — 



24 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

" War, therefore I would define as a phase 
in the Hfe-effort of the State towards com- 
pleter self-realization, a phase of the eternal 
nisns, the perpetual omnipresent strife of all 
being towards self-fulfilment. Destruction is 
not its aim, but the intensification of the life, 
whether of the conquering or of the con- 
quered State. War is thus a manifestation 
of the world-spirit in the form the most 
sublime and awful that can enthrall the con- 
templation of man. It is an action radiating 
from the same source as the heroisms, the 
essential agonies, conflicts, of all life." 

You declare war upon people, you invade 
their country, kill thousands of them, deport 
the survivors, sack and burn their home- 
steads, deprive them of their independence and 
of their existence as a nation, set your foot 
upon their necks in the insolence of conquest ; 
all this for the purpose of intensifying their 
national life as well as your own ! Again, it 
must be said that a spirit strange and almost 
delirious is abroad. 

There is a disposition on the part of some of 
these closet warriors to treat with levity those 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 2$ 

who think that there is enough of misery, pain, 
and bereavement in the world without adding 
the horrors of war. If they had only seen 
the contents of a field hospital after a battle ! 
However, in those who fight, the battle calls 
forth heroic qualities. What sort of qualities 
does it call forth in those who do not fight, but 
stay at home gloating over telegraphic reports 
of carnage, or making night hideous with the 
orgies of victory? 

Tennyson, in a well-known passage of 
" Maud," inspired by that Crimean war which 
has now not a single defender, gives raptur- 
ous expression to his belief that the mean 
vices which peace has bred will be banished 
by the ennobling influence of war. Is there 
the slightest reason for believing that in 
that case or in any case war, as war, ever 
did banish the mean vices? A struggle for 
a noble cause no doubt ennobles a nation. 
But then it is the cause that does it, not the 
mere war. So, a just war may unite a nation ; 
though the war of 1812, which American 
historians say completed the union of the 
American confederation, was attended by a 



26 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

violent party struggle, and gave birth to the 
Hartford Convention. Besides, we have no 
right to heal our own dissensions by breaking 
our neighbour's head. 

That a nation, if it is not in a constant state 
of preparation for war, and of appeal to the 
martial sentiment, must become enervated and 
lose its warlike qualities, can hardly be main- 
tained after the War of Secession, in which an 
industrial nation, after a long peace, displayed 
an aptitude for war unsurpassed in history. 

It is needless to say what is the relation of 
Militarism to political liberty. It has been the 
same ever since the militaiy power enslaved 
Rome. England owed the preservation of her 
liberties to her immunity, as an island realm, 
from standing armies. She had nearly lost 
them when the mercenaries of James II. were 
encamped at Hounslow. They would, in fact, 
have been lost if William and his Dutchmen 
had not come to their rescue, perhaps even 
had Marlborough adhered to the King. The 
French Republic the other day narrowly es- 
caped being for the third time subverted by 
its army. Had either Boulanger or Zurlinden 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 2/ 

been politically daring, the Republic would 
probably have fallen. The American army 
of the War of Secession was not a standing 
army, but a nation in arms for self-preserva- 
tion. The war over, it returned to industry. 
Yet it has given birth to a great military inter- 
est, and to a Pension List against which, though 
it exceeds the cost of the great standing armies 
of Europe, neither political party has entered 
a protest. 

Since the time of James II. there has been 
in England no serious conflict between the 
Government and the people. Yet in the 
period between the end of the French war and 
the passing of the Reform Bill, Government, in 
its resistance to reform, may be said to have 
rested on military force, and had not the Duke 
of Wellington been, as he was, thoroughly con- 
stitutional, military force might have been 
more openly displayed. Fear of this caused 
an outbreak of popular feeling against the 
Duke, of which the iron shutters of Apsley 
House long remained the monument. 

Clay made the war of 1812, and wished the 
fact inscribed on his tomb. But he lived to 



28 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

deplore its consequence, the dictatorship of 
Jackson, and to modify his bellicose tone. He 
voted against a pension for the mother of 
Perry, the hero of Lake Erie, on the double 
ground that the pension system must be re- 
stricted, and that military distinction must not 
be made supreme. " As a friend to liberty and 
to the permanence of our institutions," he wrote 
to Francis Brooke, " I cannot consent in this 
early stage of their existence, by contributing 
to the election of a military chieftain, to give 
the strongest guaranty that the Republic 
would march in the fatal road which has con- 
ducted every other Republic to ruin." 

Prussia had to put on her helmet for the 
purpose of uniting Germany and protecting 
the union against France. But what have 
been the consequences of her prolonged Mili- 
tarism.? Some Germans at all events com- 
plain that it rests like a curse upon her; that 
it deprives her people practically of a free con- 
stitution and extended suffrage; that it en- 
slaves the Legislature, gags opinion, and fills 
the gaols with political offenders. If there is 
any measure of truth in these complaints, we 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 29 

see once more how institutions formally free 
may be practically nullified by a predominat- 
ing influence. 

Military parade and glitter are in themselves 
a seductive counter-charm to political aspira- 
tion. British Toryism perceives this and acts 
on the perception. It is noted by American 
historians that there was nothing military in 
the demonstrations and processions which cele- 
brated the acceptance of the Constitution and 
the birth of the American nation. But the 
parade of Queen Victoria's Jubilee was highly 
military, even the House of Commons having 
no place in it. A grand feature of it was the 
display of a magnificent war fleet. Its aspect 
was not so much that of the harvest-home of 
a reign of peaceful prosperity, as that of a 
show of war power. The nations responded 
by a general increase of war navies. With this 
passion for military show has gone a marked 
tendency to political reaction. 

Military distinction seems always, for some 
reason which is difficult to divine, to have had 
a singular fascination for the American people. 
The British nation once put a famous soldier 



30 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

at its head, but Wellington was not a mere 
soldier ; he was a great European statesman, an 
oracle of conservative Europe. America has 
had five soldier Presidents besides other elec- 
tions or nominations partly on military grounds. 
General Jackson on his prancing charger before 
the White House symbolizes the tendency. 

In a navy there is no political danger. Not 
a word can be said against the creation of a 
navy strong enough to protect the widespread 
commerce of the United States, to guard Ameri- 
can coasts from insult and forever put an end 
to all threats of bombarding New York. Nor 
can a word be said against the provision of 
such coaling stations as the navy may require. 

Man, it seems, after all, must have a religion. 
Belief in Christianity and even in a God grow- 
ing faint, he is taking to worshipping the Flag. 
Strict laws are to be made against the profana- 
tion of the sacred emblem by any common use. 
More than that, its unfurling, no matter in 
what quarrel, is to be held to constitute moral- 
ity, so as to bind and at the same time to 
absolve the conscience of the citizen. Be the 
cause good or bad, the flag must be carried 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 31 

on to victory, and everything done with that 
purpose is to be deemed right. With this wor- 
ship of the flag goes the maxim, " My country, 
right or wrong," — Decatur's doctrine which 
was revived for President Polk's Mexican war. 
Of the superstition, which is the offspring of 
primitive ignorance or of bHnd tradition, we 
have had examples enough ; this seems to be 
the first superstition consciously imposed on 
ourselves. Attachment to the flag as the sym- 
bol of the nation is right and natural ; but 
the present transport of adoration leaves that 
sentiment far behind. 

Nobody has conspired. Nobody need be 
suspected of any evil intentions. There is no 
design, perhaps not even a desire. But there 
is a tendency, against which loyal liegemen of 
the commonwealth may do well to guard. 



"There is nothing," says the historian of 
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
"more adverse to nature and reason than to 
hold in obedience remote countries and foreign 
nations, in opposition to their inclination and 



32 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

interest. A torrent of Barbarians may pass 
over the earth, but an extensive empire must 
be supported by a refined system of policy and 
oppression ; in the centre, an absohite power, 
prompt in action and rich in resources ; a swift 
and easy communication with the extreme 
parts ; fortifications to check the first effort of 
rebellion ; a regular administration to protect 
and punish; and a well-disciplined army to 
inspire fear, without provoking discontent and 
despair." 

Empire is the result of conquest, and con- 
quest is the appetite of the savage man, who 
preys upon his fellows as the tiger preys upon 
the herd. In the case of the utter barbarian, 
the Assyrian, the Mogul, the Tartar, or the 
Turk, it is mere rapine and does nothing but 
destroy. In the case of the Saracen or the 
Spanish adventurer, it is less merely destructive 
and may partly compensate for its havoc by 
deposits of value, though the ruin of Mexican 
and Aztec civilization by Spanish conquerors 
is to be deplored. The Macedonian sowed 
the seeds of Greek culture, albeit of a culture 
far inferior to that of Athens. The Romans 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 33 

extended the dominion of Latin law and gov- 
ernment. Not that either Alexander or the 
Roman conqueror had any definite idea of a 
civilizing mission, or of anything but his own 
aggrandizement. The savage appetite reap- 
peared in the Corsican Napoleon, who burned 
with a lust, not of conquest only, but of war. 
As civilization advances, the primitive passion 
loses its force. Even in military statesmen 
of the better class, such as Washington and 
Wellington, it ceases to exist. Policy conspires 
with humanity in its extinction, mere extension 
of territory being seen to bring not increase of 
strength but of weakness. 

If you have Empire, you will, in one form or 
another, as Gibbon says, have absolute power. 
So it has been, from days of the Assyrian 
Empire down to the days of the Empire of 
Napoleon. So it will always be. In gaining 
a vast Empire abroad, Spain forfeited liberty 
at home. Already the President of the United 
States has, over the subject Filipinos, powers 
from the assumption of which Washington 
would have recoiled, and which would have 
filled Jefferson with dismay. 



34 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

The adoption of Imperialism by Americans 
can hardly fail to carry with it a fundamental 
change in the moral foundations of their own 
Commonwealth. Other polities, such as that 
of England, may be based on constitutional 
tradition. That of the United States is based 
on established and almost consecrated princi- 
ples. The Declaration of Independence, it 
is true, was a creation of the eighteenth cen- 
tury; its abstract doctrine of human equality 
belongs to the political philosophy of that 
^^ra. But it has living force when it says, as 
' in effect it does, that man shall not exercise 
lordship over man. When the people of the 
United States, after recognizing the Filipinos 
as their allies, bought them with their land of 
Spain, as they would buy the contents of a 
cattle-ranch or a sheep-fold, and proceeded 
to shoot them down for refusing to be deliv- 
ered to the purchaser, they surely broke away 
from the principles on which their own polity 
is built, and compromised the national charac- 
( ter formed on respect for those principles. 

It is instructive to mark the political effect 
that Imperialism, with its inevitable consort, 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 35 

Militarism, has already begun to produce in 
Great Britain. The party of Liberalism and 
Progress lies prostrate. That of Aristocracy 
or Plutocracy and reaction triumphs. Tories 
even begin to hope for fulfilment of the vision 
of Bolingbroke, afterwards reproduced by Dis- 
raeli ; personal government in the shape of 
a patriot king, supported by monarchical 
masses against the democratic intelligence 
of the middle class, as the Bourbon despotism 
at Naples was supported by the multitude. 
There has unquestionably been, since the out- 
break of Jingoism, an inflation of monarchical 
sentiment, and a perceptible disposition to 
revive the personal power of the Crown. Con- 
stitutional Conservatism, such as was that of 
Canning and Peel, is at a discount, and the 
political work of the last century seems in 
danger of being partly undone. The personal 
worship of Royalty and the parade of Royal 
state are being carried to a height unprece- 
dented of late years. It is proposed to change 
the wording of the National Anthem, and for 
"our gracious King" to replace "our lord, 
the King." Imperial designations are creep- 



36 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

ing into the place of those of constitutional 
Monarchy. There is perhaps a still more 
ominous sign of reaction. A Minister of the 
Crown, called to account for having had British 
citizens tried for treason by court martial, in a 
Colony where the courts were open, feels him- 
self safe in answering with bravado. 

The American Commonwealth had the larg- 
est population of freemen in the world, and 
one which was rapidly growing. Its heritage 
reached from Arctic regions to regions almost 
tropical, with a range of production embracing 
nearly everything needed or desired by man. 
The world was full of its inventions and its 
manufactures. It was the tutelary power of 
this continent. It was in the van of political 
progress. Its influence was felt more or less 
in the politics of all nations. If such a state 
was isolation, it was an isolation the influence 
of which was as wide as humanity. 

But a tempter crept to the ear of the Com- 
monwealth and whispered that all this was 
narrow and mean. The time, the tempter 
said, had come for an ampler life, for ceasing 
to listen to the saws of Washington's senile 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 37 

prudence, for doffing the trader, and claiming 
a seat in the grand council of aristocratic 
and military nations. An appeal was made 
to something like the craving of the Ameri- 
can girl for entrance into high European 
society, not without risk of the mortification 
with which the newcomer into a patrician 
circle is apt to meet. 

At the same time, the world in general was 
being filled with the spirit of Jingoism, that 
curious reaction against peaceful and industrial 
civilization, as well as against international 
morality, already noted, which may perhaps be 
said to have partly had its source in a philoso- 
phy of materialism; Darwin's doctrine of the 
Survival of the Fittest being misconstrued, as 
if the strongest were the fittest, which, though 
true in the case of brutes, is untrue in the case 
of the moral and intellectual being, Man. 

Commercial greed, however, has been a 
powerful factor. Over-production, which seems 
to prevail in the manufacturing countries, 
begets a general craving for new markets. 
The objects of the predatory attack on China 
were " spheres of influence," the command, that 



38 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

is, of sections of country in which the preda- 
tory power might force the Chinese to buy its 
goods. For this, under the mask of punishing 
Chinese outrage, massacre and havoc were let 
loose upon that hapless land. Americans may 
well congratulate themselves on having been 
kept as a nation clear of these doings by a 
Government not yet thoroughly initiated in 
Imperialism, or emancipated from the ties of 
humanity. The South African war, again, was 
brought about largely by the desire of a com- 
mercial interest for more complete possession 
of the mines, though with that influence was 
blended national desire of Empire and of 
revenge for Majuba Hill. " The British flag," 
says Mr. Cecil Rhodes, "is the greatest of 
assets." 

Capital is attracted by the prospect of ex- 
ploiting new and rich fields of enterprise with 
servile labour, and this tendency to employ 
servile labour is a fact of which free labour, 
which would be in danger of suffering by the 
competition, would do well to take note. 

Will commerce find in the end that it has 
best promoted its own interests by filling the 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 39 

world with havoc ? Will the Chinese market, 
for instance, be improved by a carnival of 
slaughter and destruction, with inevitable fam- 
ine in its train ? Will not the price of con- 
quest in itself be a formidable offset to the 
profit ? Last year's profit of trade with the 
Philippines is miserably small as compared 
with the expenditure on the conquest. It is 
true, the expenditure falls on the public, the 
gain accrues to the trader, who is active in 
support of a policy which serves his interest, 
while the public yawns over the dry details 
of national finance. As Adam Smith says: 
" To found a great Empire for the sole pur- 
pose of raising up a people of customers, may, 
at first sight, appear a project fit only for a 
nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project 
altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, 
but extremely fit for a nation whose govern- 
ment is influenced by shopkeepers. Such 
statesmen, and such statesmen only, are capable 
of fancying that they will find some advantage 
in employing the blood and treasure of their 
fellow-citizens to found and maintain such an 
empire." 



40 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

How, in what circumstances, and under 
what inspiration, was the nation launched on 
this new career? Was the voice of its dehb- 
erate reason heard? Were wisdom and fore- 
cast at the helm? An attractive personality 
and a tragic death have encircled with a halo 
the head of President McKinley. But those 
who compare him to Lincoln are surely mis- 
taken. Lincoln was a man of fixed princi- 
ples and a settled poHcy. In applying his 
principles and giving effect to his policy, he 
wisely consulted the popular sentiment, with 
which he was, above all men, familiar. But 
he did not yield to pressure, or veer with 
the gale. Though open to counsel, he was 
an independent, almost a lonely, thinker. His 
religion was a simple belief in the God of 
righteousness, simply expressed. Admirers of 
President McKinley will tell you that he 
went unwillingly and under party pressure 
into the Spanish war. That eminent mem- 
ber of the Republican party, the late J. M. 
Forbes, of Massachusetts, has left on record 
his conviction that the war was made to keep 
a party in power. The American people, 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 41 

as to one who was among them at the 
time it appeared, while tliey rightly wished 
to see Cuba free and Spanish power with- 
drawn from this hemisphere, neither desired 
nor expected war. The actual cause of war, 
so far as the people were concerned, it will 
be generally admitted, was the belief that 
the Maiite had been blown up by the Span- 
ish authorities. An unscrupulous Opposition 
set England on fire, and forced Walpole into 
a war with Spain, by the story of Jenkins's 
ear, which Jenkins said the Spaniards had 
cut off, but the incredulous said had been 
cut off in the pillory. Burke tells us that the 
authors of that war, which broke the peace of 
Europe, coolly washed their hands of it, and 
spoke of it with total unconcern. Territorial 
annexation having been disclaimed by the 
President, must have been accidental, not 
deliberate. The annexation of the Philippines 
was evidently the accidental result of Admiral 
Dewey's naval victory at Manila, not sanc- 
tioned by the deliberate judgment of the na- 
tion. When it had taken place, an appeal 
was made to the pride of the people, who 



42 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

were called upon to uphold the flag, and 
keep what they were said to have won. 

Timur the Tartar and Gengis Khan meant 
conquest and avowed it. They meant slaughter 
and avowed it, raising triumphal pyramids of 
heads. They had no philanthropic pretentions. 
The Imperialist of to-day, when he attacks 
the weak, burns their homes, takes possession 
of their land, and if they " rebel," sends " puni- 
tive expeditions against them," laps himself 
in the delusion that he is the elect instru- 
ment of destiny, or if he is pious, of God. 
What is his " destiny " or his " God " but the 
shadow of his own rapacity projected on the 
clouds ? What had destiny or God or any- 
thing but human greed to do with the atroci- 
ties perpetrated in China? 

Does the white man, in his overflowing 
philanthropy, want a burden ? He has it at 
his own door. If he is a member of the 
British Parliament, let him step out into 
Whitechapel or Houndsditch, or let him read 
" The White Slaves of England," and see 
how in his own country the alkali-worker, 
the nail-maker, the slipper-maker, the wool- 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 43 

comber, the white-lead maker, the chain-maker 
live. 

In the United States the white man has a — 7 
burden, such perhaps as no other nation has 
been called upon to bear. It would be hard, 
at least, to find any instance of a problem so 
arduous as that of the two races in the South. 
Where intermarriage is out of the question, 
social equality cannot exist; without social 
equality political equality is impossible, and a 
Republic in the true sense can hardly be. 
When hatred of race has mounted to such 
a pitch that the people of one race go out 
by thousands to see a man of the other 
race burnt alive, and carry away his charred 
bones or pieces of his singed garments as 
souvenirs; when they even photograph and 
phonograph his dying agonies ; how can it 
be hoped that the two races will ever form 
one commonwealth ? Can it even be hoped 
that they will ever dwell side by side in 
peace ? Even the hospitable reception of a 
black man by the President is enough to 
call forth a storm of Southern indignation, 
and from a Senator a threat of massacre. 



44 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

All ideas of the negro's dying out, all 
ideas of deporting him or corralling him have 
manifestly come to an end. Some of the 
firmest among English friends of the North 
at the time of the Civil War could not help 
viewing with deep misgiving the reincorpo- 
ration of the Slave States. How is this prob- 
lem to be solved.? How is it to be solved 
by a Government which has practically no 
power of coercion, which cannot afford to 
estrange Southern votes.-* President Mc Kin- 
ley, while he was preaching the love of law 
to the Filipinos with fire and sword, stood 
in the midst of a country where lawless 
lynching was going on, yet could not ven- 
ture to protest. 

To the black population of the Southern 
States is apparently soon to be added the 
black population of Cuba, while even the 
white population of Cuba is not American 
or truly Republican in character. Should 
expansion pursue that course, San Domingo 
and the West Indies, with their black mill- 
ions and their alien civilization or barbarism, 
will probably be annexed. Grant strove hard 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 45 

to bring about the annexation of San Domingo. 
The Isthmian canal will act as a lure to 
expansion on the continent southward. The 
slave-owner's dream of an Empire extending 
south may thus be practically fulfilled. What, 
then, will become of the American Common- 
wealth ? One of two things apparently must 
ensue; either a radical change in the char- 
acter of the nation and in the spirit, if not 
in the form of its institutions, or a second 
disruption. Have Expansionists looked ahead.? 
Have they made up their minds what direc- 
tion their expansion shall take, and consid- 
ered, if it takes a southern direction, what is 
likely to be the effect } The decision cannot 
safely be left to traders, who are apt to care 
litde for national character, or for anything 
but the immediate extension of their trade. 

Mystical fancies about destined preemi- 
nence of race are invented to sanction con- 
quest. The Anglo-Saxon race, we are told, has 
been marked out by Nature for universal rule, 
and commissioned to impose peace, that is its 
own supremacy, upon the world. Those who 
can cherish such an idea have little right to 



46 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

sneer at the political metaphysics of the De- 
claration of Independence. The blood of the 
tribe which came from Germany with Hengst 
and Horsa, has been enormously diluted, even 
in the British Islands. Four-fifths of Ire- 
land, the Highlands of Scotland, Wales, and 
much of the extreme west of England are 
Celtic. There must be millions of Irish or 
their descendants in Great Britain. The Scan- 
dinavian, Fleming, and French Huguenot have 
also their share in the compound. The Brit- 
ish constitution is no doubt Teutonic, but 
though cast in the mould of aboriginal circum- 
stance, it is not a mystical gift of blood. In 
the British Colonies, there is the same mix- 
ture. In Canada, there is a large body of 
French. In the population of the United 
States, the restlessness and enterprise of half a 
dozen races are blended. It belongs not to a 
tribe but to humanity, and to humanity, not to 
a tribe, ought its aspirations and its policy to 
belong. If the dream of Anglo- Israel is fa- 
tuous, hardly less so is that of Anglo-Saxon 
domination. 

Never, surely, was a term more misapplied 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 47 

than is " Expansion," when it is applied to the 
annexation of a country so many thousands 
of miles off, inhabited by a totally alien and 
probably restive population, and presenting not 
a source of military strength but a point of 
military weakness. Expansion is extension 
without breach of continuity, either territo- 
rial or of any other kind. Such was the 
incorporation of Louisiana; such was the in- 
corporation of California. The clearest and*7 
happiest of all cases of Expansion would be ] 
Continental Union, if ever, with the good-will ( 
of Canada and her mother countr}^, Conti- | 
nental Union should take place. Not only are \ 
the countries conterminous and interlocked, 
but their population, the bulk of it at least, is 
identical, while in their products they are com- 
plements of each other; Canada supplying 
timber, minerals, and water-power, the United 
States manufacturing on a large scale. The 
soundest and most conservative element of the 
United States would be reinforced by the 
fusion. But the two reproaches of statesman- 
ship are the dealing of British statesmen 
with the Irish question and the dealing of 



48 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

American statesmen with the question of Can- 
ada. Protectionism has now laid its grasp on 
the poHcy of the United States, and while 
nature proclaims a union, Tariff forbids the 
banns. 

If Americans go into partnership with 
British Jingoism, will they not find them- 
selves involved in an undertaking at once 
extensive and foreign to their interest ? After 
the war with Napoleon and the destruction 
of the European navies Great Britain was 
left absolutely mistress of the sea. This 
position, no longer maintainable since the 
other navies have grown up, Great Britain 
is still struggling to maintain. Her widely 
scattered possessions, the fruits of her former 
predominance at sea, compel her to make 
the effort. For anyone of her rivals she may 
be more than a match; by greatly strain- 
ing herself and burdening her people, she 
may be a match for any two of them; she 
cannot be a match for them all. They will 
combine to assert the independence of the 
seas. The Mediterranean, as England already 
forebodes, is likely to be the first scene of 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 49 

such a conflict. Would it be possible to 
draw the American people into a tremendous 
struggle for the purpose of keeping the 
Mediterranean under British control ? 

Commercial gain would be the real object, 
commercial cupidity would be the sustaining 
principle, of the league. But in their com- 
mercial policy the two nations at present are 
diametrically opposed to each other, Great 
Britain being for free trade, America being 
for protection. That Great Britain will ever 
renounce free trade, under which her wealth 
has increased threefold, seems as unlikely as 
that the Thames will reverse its course. Mut- 
terings of reaction, political rather than eco- 
nomical in their source, and local rather than 
national, are heard from time to time, but 
they die away. 

A leacrue between two States in different i 
parts of the globe, bound together merely by 
origin or language, yet sworn to fight in 
each other's quarrels, whatever the cause was, 
would be a conspiracy against international 
morality and the independence of all nations 
such as would soon compel the world to 



50 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

take arms for its overthrow. Nobody would 
be cajoled by such phrases as "spreading 
civilization " or " imposing universal peace." 
The world does not want to have anything 
imposed on it by an Anglo-Saxon league or 
by a combination of any kind. 

The American Constitution is not suited 
for playing the British game. In England 
foreign policy remains in the same hands 
enough to preserve its continuity and the 
general identity of its aims. A Foreign Min- 
ister, retiring from office, still sits in Parlia- 
ment, and still has his voice in the councils 
of the State, while the Foreign Office is 
largely in the hands of permanent officers of 
the highest class. But an American Secre- 
tary of State, retiring from office, hardly ever 
takes his seat in Congress, so that the thread 
of an Imperialist policy would be abruptly 
broken off every four years, and there could 
hardly be community of design or continu- 
ous cooperation with the Foreign Office of 
Great Britain. Instead of unity of counsels, 
angry divergence might result. 

Other incono-ruities subversive of union 

o 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 51 

would be likely to crop up among the mem- 
bers of this vast Anglo-Saxon league. Great 
Britain is conservative. The United States 
are not socialistic. In Australia and New 
Zealand legislative socialism is strong and 
apparently on the increase. An English 
journalist, visiting a British colony, could 
say that he had never felt himself in so for- 
eign a country ; and though the expression 
was, no doubt, rhetorical, there was in it at 
least a grain of truth. 

At this particular juncture, from pretty ob- 
vious motives, the aristocratic and plutocratic 
party in England is enfolding in a loving 
embrace the American democracy as a long- 
lost member of the family, whose relationship 
was unfortunately hidden from view at the 
crisis of Secession. At the same time it re- 
mains unchanged and propagates its political 
sentiment in Canada through its Canadian or- 
gans not less actively than before. This sudden 
impulse may be transitory as well as sudden. 
It is said that the Tory Government of Great 
Britain took the part of the United States 
in the councils of Europe at the time of the 



52 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

war with Spain. If it did, the occasion was 
special and the motive here again was one on 
which no permanent rehance could be based. 

The American people have generally gone 
rather to an extreme in their avowal of sym- 
pathy with struggles for independence: South 
American, Polish, Hungarian, or Irish. To 
their sympathy with the Irish struggle for 
independence they even sacrificed their grati- 
tude to John Bright. Why has the expression 
of sympathy with the struggle of the South 
African Commonwealths for their existence 
been less heard? The answer given to that 
question by an Anti-Expansionist was : " The 
blood of the Filipinos chokes us." 

The Republican party must have undergone 
a curious transformation. Who would have 
supposed forty years ago that it could become 
Imperialist and lean towards alliance with a 
party in England, identical with that which 
took so vehemently the side of the South at 
the time of the War of Secession.? Party 
government in the United States seems to 
assume the singular form of two great stand- 
ing organizations, recognized by the law and 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 53 

almost overlaying the Constitution, which re- 
main always on foot, but vary their attitude 
and policy before each presidential election. 

If the Commonwealth yearns for a grander 
part, a grander part may be found, not in part- 
nership with aggressive power, but rather in 
morally upholding against aggression human 
independence and the rights of every member 
of the family of nations. In the East, the 
influence of the Republic must be greater if 
she stands aloof from European powers to 
whose aggressive attitude this uprising of 
Chinese nationality with its murderous con- 
sequences is due. 

A part of the dream is that the language 
of the Anglo-Saxon race shall become uni- 
versal. It is a trader's idea. The English 
language, with all its noble qualities, the 
tongue of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Burke 
though it is, was shattered by the Norman 
Conquest, and has no terms of its own for 
science or philosophy, but is compelled for 
these purposes to borrow, and very awk- 
wardly, from the Greek. Should we be gainers 
if the dream could be fulfilled, if all litera- 



54 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

tures save one could be extinguished, and 
all diversities of mind attendant on varieties 
of speech could cease ? What is the object 
of rolling everything flat? 

It was beginning to be thought that the 
time had come when small nationalities were to 
be swallowed by great Empires. Against this 
the Boer and Filipino have entered protests 
of which humanity will hereafter take account. 
Upon what, except mere cupidity, territorial 
or commercial, does the assumption rest.'* 
Which of the two, dead uniformity or emu- 
lous variety, is most likely to conduce to 
human progress and to enrich the human 
store ? Athens and Florence were small 
States. So was Jud^a. So was even repub- 
lican Rome. Holland is a very small State 
compared with the great monarchies of 
Europe. Sweden is a small State, yet, under 
Gustavus Adolphus, she saved European lib- 
erty. England herself, after all, apart from 
Scotland and Ireland, is not very much larger 
than the State of New York. Philip II. of 
Spain thought that she ought to be appended 
to his colossal realm. 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 55 

This Imperialism threatens with destruction 
the wild stocks of humanity. A camp service 
of silver plate was dug up near an old battle- 
field in Germany. It was supposed to be 
the camp service of Varus, the armed mission- 
ary of Roman civilization and despotism, who 
had there been defeated by Arminius, the 
champion of barbarism and national indepen- 
dence. Suppose civilization had triumphed on 
that field and slain in its embiyo the nation of 
Luther, Leibnitz, Lessing, Goethe, Von Hum- 
boldt, and Bismarck. Who shall say that the 
uncivilized or half-civilized races now being 
crushed by predatory powers in different parts 
of the w^orld, may not have in them the germs 
of something which, spontaneously developed, 
would be as noble and worth as much to 
humanity as any of the powers themselves? 
The Boers were set down as barbarians stand- 
ing in the path of a superior civilization, to 
which it was in the order of Providence that 
they should give way. Have they not shown 
themselves the equals of their conquerors in 
all that makes not only the thews and sinews, 
but the heart of a nation ? And to what sort 



5-6 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

of civilization is it that they are to give place ? 
Johannesburg is described by a perfectly trust- 
worthy witness as a city of gambling-houses, 
saloons, brothels, and prize-rings, exceeding 
even the ordinary depravity of gold-seeking 
settlements. 

To open areas of territory, nature beckons 
the settler, and there ambition has a blameless 
and beneficent sphere. Unluckily, the areas 
are seldom so open as not to contain a native 
population. Then, there is too apt to be cruel 
work. * The first business of the Colonist,' it 
was once said, ' is to extirpate the wild animals, 
and of the wild animals the most noxious is 
the wild man.' Natives have been killed with 
poisoned food. The civilized power sets up 
its flag. If, after that, the native presumptu- 
ously attempts to keep his land to himself, 
a "punitive expedition" goes forth with fire 
and sword. The effect on the character of 
the Colonist is not good. Some of the Afri- 
can tribes, no doubt, the Ashantis for example, 
are detestably savage. Whether their savagery 
in any case may have had its origin in the 
tribal wars kindled by the slave-trader, we can- 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 57 

not tell. But the Maori, in New Zealand, seem 
to have been not less capable of improvement 
than the bands of Hengst and Horsa, or those of 
Clovis. Yet the Maori narrowly escaped extirpa- 
tion. Supposing the Filipinos to be admitted 
to the advantages of peaceable intercourse and 
commerce, is there any reason for assuming that 
they would be incapable of advance in civiliza- 
tion ? Japan was fortunate enough to get an 
independent start; otherwise she might now 
be classed among countries which " Duty tak- 
ing the hand of Destiny" has marked for civ- 
ilization by the sword. 

Have we real ground in reason or expe- 
rience for believing that any nation can suc- 
ceed in forcibly imparting its political qualities 
to another nation, or in bringing another 
nation by force up to its own stage of prog- 
ress ? The instruments through which the 
tutelary nation must act are almost sure to be 
vitiated by the very process of their employ- 
ment. Americans, President McKinley said, 
would not change their character at the 
tropics. He probably had in his mind a 
delegation of the best American morality. 



58 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

But Boston does not go to Manila. To 
Manila go rough soldiers and commercial 
adventurers probably of the most adventur- 
ous class. There have been complaints of 
the multiplication of the haunts of dissipation 
and vice, while in the coarser minds contact 
with a subject and despised race in itself 
breeds insolence and, too often, inhumanity. 
So long as West Point governs the depend- 
ency, order may be maintained and material 
improvement may be enforced. But West 
Point cannot govern forever. 

Empire and Emperor are Roman names, 
and the tradition of Roman Empire still 
floats before the fancy of modern Imperial- 
ists. It evidently floated before the fancy of 
Napoleon with his Senate, his Eagles, and 
his Legion of Honour. Yet nothing can more 
completely belong to the past. The Roman 
Empire had the world, the civilized world at 
least, or what was the same thing, the world 
round the Mediterranean, to itself. Its domain, 
though vast, and embracing a variety of races, 
was within a ring fence. The circumstances 
of its growth and organization were such as 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 59 

have never since existed, and can never again 
exist. It united all the nations within its 
pale, albeit more in the way of common 
subjection than of brotherhood. It thus, no 
doubt, paved the way for the spread of Chris- 
tianity, though the Gospel owed its success 
largely to the general misery which made 
men, despairing of this world, turn their 
thoughts to the Kingdom of Heaven. Its 
great merit was that it maintained peace, a 
peace, however, broken by the German war, 
the British war, the Jewish war, and the civil 
wars in the time of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, 
as well as by border wars with the Parthians, 
Dacians, and other tribes. Jurisprudence owed 
much to the Empire, but not its birth ; it was 
born with the Twelve Tables, and might trace 
its origin to questions of right between differ- 
ent orders which arose in the early centuries 
of the Republic. Monuments of a less salu- 
tary influence than that to which we owe the 
Pandects are the huge substructions of the 
palace of the Caesars with their memories of 
colossal vice, and, hard by, the vast amphitheatre 
which was the scene of gladiatorial butcheries, 



6o COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

and the centre of similar butcheries through- 
out the Roman world. Literature lano:uished 
and died. The people of the Imperial city 
became a debased, debauched, and mendicant 
rabble. The place of nationalities, some of 
them richly endowed and promising, which had 
been sacrificed to pile up the Empire, could not 
be filled by the satellites of a central despotism. 
The end everywhere was decay, moral, politi- 
cal, and social. At last over the wide expanse 
of Imperial corruption bands of uncorrupted 
barbarians stalked as conquerors to found new 
nations. 

Contrast the work done for humanity by 
Rome with that done by Tyre, a city on an 
island less than three miles in circumference, 
which, as the soul of Phoenician enteiprise, 
linked by commerce India, perhaps China, to 
the extreme West, and if it did not give us 
jurisprudence, gave us the alphabet, that is, 
the possibility of literary and intellectual life. 

Is the British Empire an object of Ameri- 
can envy and emulation ? British Empire is 
a fallacious term. The relation of Great 
Britain to the self-governing colonies, Can- 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 6 1 

ada, Australia, and New Zealand, is not im- 
perial. This the colonies have plainly shown 
by laying protective duties on British goods. 
Australia is now showing it by proposing to 
exclude British contract labour, and to close 
herself against all the coloured subjects of 
his Majesty, that is, about five-sixths of the 
population of his Majesty's dominions. In 
the self-governing colonies Great Britain re- 
tains only the appointment of a Governor, 
who represents the King, and, like the King, 
reigns, but does not govern ; a precarious 
command of the militia; an appellate juris- 
diction, the bounds of which are being con- 
standy narrowed; and the distribution of 
Peerages, Baronetcies, Knighthoods and mil- 
itary decorations. The most effective of the 
prerogatives is perhaps the last. The Imperial 
country was till lately burdened with the entire 
defence of the colonies, while with their entire ; 

naval defence she is burdened still; and in 1 

j 

regard to military defence they still fall far | 
short of anything like an equal contribution. ! 
As dependencies, colonies have been to Great 
Britain a heavy financial loss. " The expense 



62 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

of the peace establishment of the colonies," says 
Adam Smith, " was before the commencement of 
the present disturbances [the quarrel with the 
American colonists] very considerable, and is an 
expense which may and, if no revenue can be 
drawn from them, ought certainly to be saved 
altogether. This constant expense in time 
of peace, though very great, is insignificant 
in comparison with what the defence of the 
colonies has cost us in time of war. The 
last war, which was undertaken altogether on 
account of the colonies, cost Great Britain, it 
has already been observed, upwards of ninety 
millions. The Spanish war of 1739 was prin- 
cipally undertaken on their account, in which, 
and in the French war that was the conse- 
quence of it. Great Britain spent upwards of 
forty millions, a great part of which ought 
justly to be charged to the colonies. In 
those two wars the colonies cost Great Brit- 
ain much more than double the sum which 
the national debt amounted to before the 
commencement of the first of them." Many 
millions were expended in Kaffir and Maori 
wars, which the colonists would probably have 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 63 

avoided by wise treatment of the natives, had 
the Imperial troops been out of the way. 
A thousand millions of dollars are spent, thou- 
sands of British lives are sacrificed, the power 
of the nation is overstrained, and a perilous 
amount of odium is incurred for an exten- 
sion of dominion in South Africa from 
which the Imperial country will not derive 
pecuniary tribute or military strength. Yet 
all the time a vague belief that the colonial 
dependencies were sources both of strength 
and profit has kept possession of the British 
mind. 

We are now dreaming of Imperial Federa- 
tion, but our vision has not yet taken any prac- 
tical or even definite form. We have never 
been told, at least with any sort of concurrence 
or authority, how the Parliament of the Em- 
pire is to be composed ; what are to be its 
functions ; how its edicts and requisitions are 
to be enforced ; what are to be its relations to 
the British Crown and Foreign Ofhce ; or by 
what tribunal its constitution is to be inter- 
preted and preserved. Nor have we been told 
what is to be done with India, to hand which 



64 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

over to a great Federal Assembly, comprising 
ultra-democratic delegations, would be a des- 
perate measure indeed. Australian Federa- 
tion, instead of being a step towards Imperial 
Federation, is a step the other way, since it 
enlarges and consolidates Colonial self-govern- 
ment. However, nothing analogous to the 
relation between Great Britain and her self- 
governing Colonies is likely to be formed in 
the case of the United States. The example 
is useful only as a warning against Imperial 
illusions. Everything that Great Britain has 
got from the Colonies as dependencies, and 
more, she might have got from them as inde- 
pendent nations, without the danger and the 
enormous expense. 

To India the relation of Great Britain is 
really Imperial. In the dissolution of the 
Mogul Empire, a trading company armed, as 
trading companies at the time and in those 
regions had need to be, acquired territorial 
dominion, which its servants at first grievously 
abused. The British Government stepped in 
and placed the Company, as a political power, 
under control. At the same time, Parliament 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 65 

emphatically abjured and prohibited the exten- 
sion of British dominion in India. British 
dominion in India nevertheless continued to be 
extended, chiefly by collision with anarchic 
and predatory powers, till Lord Wellesley, an 
ambitious Governor-General, formally founded 
the Indian Empire. Extension still went on 
in the same manner as before, and was com- 
pleted by the defeat of the invading Sikhs and 
the conquest of the Punjaub. There followed 
the great mutiny of the Company's soldiers, the 
Sepoys, provoked by a careless infraction 
of their caste. After the suppression of the 
mutiny, the Company was abolished, and its 
dominions were taken over by the Imperial 
Government and added to those of the Crown. 
This measure was viewed at the time with 
misgiving by Liberals like John Stuart Mill, 
who feared, on one hand, the contagious influ- 
ence of the vast dependency on British institu- 
tions, and on the other hand, the interference 
of British politics with the affairs of the depend- 
ency. By the wise policy which gave India 
a ruler entirely separate, though responsible to 
the British Parliament and Government, and 



66 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

a Civil Service of its own, appointed not by 
patronage but by competitive examination, 
these fears appeared to have been laid to rest. 
But the Queen desired the title of Empress, 
which was given her by Disraeli, and the 
result has been a perceptible, though indefin- 
able, accession of strength to the Imperial 
idea. There is a growing tendency in 
certain quarters to substitute the character of 
Emperor for that of King. The title itself, 
which at the time of its assumption, Parliament 
was assured, would never be introduced into 
the United Kingdom, is creeping in, that 
promise notwithstanding. The fears of Mill 
and other Liberals who looked with misgiving 
on the change from the Company to the Crown, 
may after all prove not to have been wholly 
unfounded. 

To strike the balance of profit and loss, 
either on the side of the conqueror or on that 
of the conquered, would not be easy. India has 
long ceased to be to the conqueror a field of 
plunder. She has never paid tribute; but she 
has furnished honourable appointments, with 
high salaries and pensions, to a great number 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 6/ 

of Englishmen. Her public works have given 
employment to others. English capital has 
been profitably invested in her railways. Her 
trade, though opened by the liberal policy of 
Great Britain to the whole world, has been 
practically for the most part in British hands. 
That she has supplied England with great 
men has been said, but is not the fact, since 
the man who has spent the prime of his life in 
India is not good for much when he comes 
home. Some British generals, Wellington 
among the number, have been trained in 
Indian fields. On the wrong side of the bal- 
ance-sheet are the expense and danger of hold- 
ing and guarding this distant, and in itself 
defenceless, Empire. In this item must be 
comprised, in large measure, not only the 
Crimean War, but this war in South Africa, 
since the only real interest which Great Brit- 
ain has in that quarter is secure possession of 
a port on the route to India, in case of the 
Suez Canal being closed by war. England 
has plenty of fields for colonization elsewhere, 
and she has no use whatever for the veldt. 
For the sake of India, Russia has been made 



68 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

an enemy when she was, and might have 
remained, a fast friend. In case of war in 
Europe, it would be necessary to send a part 
of the British navy and army to the other side 
of the globe for the defence of Hindostan. 
Nor is it a matter of slight account, that 
British regiments are constantly exposed to 
the evils, moral as well as physical, of quarters 
in a tropical climate amidst strong temptations 
to vice. So shrewd a judge as Nassau Senior, 
the author of " Conversations with European 
Statesmen," when he was told that the 
strength of England was deemed to be in 
India, replied : " There cannot be a greater 
mistake. If we were well quit of India, we 
should be much stronccer than we are now. 
The difficulty is how to get well quit of it." 
To the conquered, the conqueror has given 
peace, and since the repression of the early 
abuses, a pure, skilful, and benevolent admin- 
istration, with upright courts of justice. Noth- 
ing in the policy of conquerors vies in good 
intentions with British administration of India. 
Mistakes there were at first. Zemindars, who 
were merely district farmers of taxes, were 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 69 

mistaken for landlords like those of England, 
and the peasant-proprietors were saddled with 
a landed aristocracy of extortionate drones. 
But of late, native character and ideas have 
been carefully studied, some of the best intel- 
lects of England being devoted to the task. 
Natives have been admitted to the adminis- 
tration, both municipal and general, as well as 
to the judiciary, though not to a share of the 
supreme power or to military commands. 
Efforts have been made by the foundation of 
colleges and schools to introduce into India 
the science and learning of the West. A sur- 
prising amount of freedom has been conceded 
to the native press. The native religions have 
been strictly respected. At the same time, 
Christianity has been zealously preached. 
Vicious customs, such as Suttee, have been 
abolished, and criminal associations, such as 
Thuggee, have been put down. Infanticide 
has been prohibited and reduced. Something 
has been done in the way of sanitation. Man- 
ufactures have been developed, though they 
compete with those of the Imperial country. 
If the conqueror were now to depart, railroads, 



70 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

telegraphs, and irrigation works would remain 
the beneficent monuments of his rule. On 
the other hand, the annual drain on Hindostan 
must be heavy. There is reason to believe 
that the cost of the foreign government and of 
its public works is too great for the country, 
which, though gorgeous, is poor. The state 
of the peasantry is by most independent wit- 
nesses described as generally unhopeful. The 
land tax is said to bear hard on them. It 
would seem that they can have no savings or 
property, since a drought sufBces to reduce so 
many millions of them to an utter destitution, 
with which the government heroically con- 
tends. The participation of natives in the 
government is by some observers described as 
unreal. Those educated in the colleges, cul- 
tivated Baboos as they are called, are said to 
be merely an artificial caste of intellect little 
sympathizing with or acting on the masses. 
The people in general seem to be human 
sheep, without power of self-guidance or self- 
help. Native effort, like native art, has lost its 
spring; there can no more be another Akbar 
than another Taj. If the aim of British rule 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 71 

is to turn Orientals into Europeans, it has so 
far been a glorious disappointment. Chris- 
tianity has made comparatively little progress, 
nor is it likely to make more, when belief in it 
fails at home. Union of the races is impos- 
sible, as the ruling race is incapable of accli- 
matization, and the social gulf between them 
has been widened since rapid communication 
has kept the Englishman in more constant 
connection with his home. The Englishman 
looks down upon the Hindoo; the Hindoo 
fears and respects the Englishman, but loves 
him not. All British reverses seem to be 
cherished in the native memory. If the British 
were now to withdraw from India, a murderous 
anarchy, ending in Mahometan tyranny, would 
probably be the result. Yet British officials 
do not pretend to believe that the dominion 
of a race incapable of acclimatization over 
a distant Empire can last forever. What the 
end will be, none of them undertake to foretell. 
The Sepoy Mutiny and its suppression 
brought out with terrible clearness the an- 
tagonism of race and the cruel contempt of 
the conqueror for the conquered. The atroc- 



72 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

ities committed by the Sepoys at Cavvnpore 
were repaid with fearful interest. Not muti- 
neers only, but people of Oudh, then a newly 
annexed principality, who had risen in the 
cause of their native dynasty, were put to 
the sword. Lord Elgin, the ex-Governor- 
General of Canada, was at Calcutta at the 
time. In his journal, he says : — 

" tells me that yesterday, at dinner, the fact, 

that Government had removed some commissioners 
who, not content with hanging all the rebels they 
could lay their hands on, had been insulting them by 
destroying their caste, telling them that after death 
they should be cast to the dogs to be devoured, etc., 
was mentioned. A reverend gentleman could not 
understand the conduct of Government; could not 
see that there was any impropriety in torturing men's 
souls ; seemed to think a good deal might be said in 
favour of bodily torture as well! These are your 
teachers, O Israel ! Imagine what the pupils become 
under such leading ! " 

Part of an order issued by the British Com- 
mandant at Cawnpore for the punishment of 
Sepoys implicated in the massacre was: — 

" Each miscreant, after sentence of death is pro- 
nounced upon him, will be taken down to the house 
in question under a guard, and will be forced into 



COMiMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 73 

cleaning up a small portion of the blood stains. The 
task will be made as revolting to his feelings as pos- 
sible, and the Provost Marshal will use the lash in 
forcing anyone objecting to complete his task." 

The same officer, a man of high character, 
not otherwise noted for inhumanity, proposed 
impahng and burning alive. 

Lord Elgin says: — 

" It is a terrible business, however, this living 
among inferior races. I have seldom from man or 
woman since I came to the East heard a sentence 
which was reconcilable with the hypothesis that 
Christianity had ever come into the world. Detes- 
tation, contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether China- 
men or Indians be the object. There are some three 
or four hundred servants in this house. When one 
first passes by their salaaiJii7ig one feels a little awk- 
ward. But the feeling soon wears off, and one moves 
among them with perfect indifference, treating them, 
not as dogs, because in that case one would whistle 
to them and pat them, but as machines with which 
one can have no communion or sympathy. Of course 
those who can speak the language are somewhat 
more en rapport with the natives, but very slightly 
so, I take it. When the passions of fear and hatred 
are engrafted on this indifference, the result is fright- 
ful, — an absolute callousness as to the sufferings of 
the objects of those passions, which must be witnessed 
to be understood and believed." 



74 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

If nothing so horrible as the Sepoy Mutiny 
and its repression has yet occurred in Ameri- 
can subjugation of the FiHpinos, it seems to 
be well attested that Filipinos have been tor- 
tured to make them give up their hidden arms, 
while the language of some of the soldiers 
engaged in the work of subjugation has been 
reckless and ruthless in the extreme. On 
the other hand, the Filipinos are accused of 
burying American prisoners alive. Is this 
the promised reign of " law, liberty, and jus- 
tice " ? Will the character of the conquerors 
remain untainted by this competition in cruelty 
with a half-civilized race ? 

For a further lesson on the subject of Empire 
in its dealings with the weaker or more back- 
ward races, we may follow Lord Elgin to China, 
whither he is sent, as an emissary of Empire, 
to enforce demands in connection with the 
war waged by Great Britain to satisfy the 
cravings of her Indian exchequer by forcing 
opium upon the Chinese, — another item on the 
wrong side in the account of British Em- 
pire in India. Lord Elgin, a man eminently 
honourable and humane, executed his com- 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 75 

mission as mercifully as he could. Yet the 
innocent and unresisting city of Canton, with 
its dense population, was bombarded for 
twenty-seven hours. Some passages in Lord 
Elgin's journal are suggestive, and have a 
special interest at this time. 

"December 22d [1857]. — On the afternoon of 
the 20th I got into a gunboat with Commodore 
Elliot, and went a short way up towards the barrier 
forts, which were last winter destroyed by the Ameri- 
cans. When we reached this point, all was so quiet 
that we determined to go on, and we actually steamed 
past the city of Canton, along the whole front, within 
pistol-shot of the town. A line of English men-of- 
war are now anchored there in front of the town. I 
never felt so ashamed of myself in my life, and EHiot 
remarked that the trip seemed to have made me sad. 
There we were, accumulating the means of destruc- 
tion under the very eyes and within the reach of a 
population of about one milHon people, against whom 
these means of destruction were to be employed ! 
' Yes,' I said to Elliot, ' I am sad, because when I 
look at the town, I feel that I am earning for myself 
a place in the litany, immediately after " plague, pes- 
tilence, and famine.'" I believe, however, that, as 
far as I am concerned, it was impossible for me to 
do otherwise than as I have done. I could not have 
abandoned the demand to enter the city after what 



J^ COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

happened last winter without compromising our posi- 
tion in China altogether, and opening the way to 
calamities even greater than those now before us. I 
made my demands on Yeh as moderate as I could, so 
as to give him a chance of accepting, although, if he 
had accepted, I knew that I should have brought on 
my head the imprecations both of the navy and army 
and of the civiHans, the time being given by the 
missionaries and the women." 

" H.M.S. Furious, Swatow. — March 5th [1858].— 
. . . The settlement here is against treaty. It con- 
sists mainly of agents of the two great opium-houses. 
Dent and Jardine, with their hangers-on. This, with 
a considerable business in the coolie trade, — which 
consists in kidnapping wretched coolies, putting them 
on board ships where all the horrors of the slave- 
trade are reproduced, and sending them on specious 
promises to such places as Cuba, — is the chief busi- 
ness of the ' foreign ' merchants at Swatow." 

"... I do not know that I carried much away 
with me, except the general impression that our 
trade is carried on on principles which are dishon- 
est as regards the Chinese and demoralizing to our 
own people." 

" The state of Ningpo in this respect furnishes 
their favourite and, perhaps, most plausible argu- 
ment to that class of persons who advocate what is 
styled a vigorous policy in China; in other words, 
a policy which consists in resorting to the most 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 'j'j 

violent measures of coercion and repression on the 
slenderest provocations." 

"March 29th [1858]. — I shall be a little curious 
to see my next letters. The truth is, that the whole 
world just now are raving mad with a passion for 
killing and slaying, and it is difficult for a person 
in his sober senses, like myself, to keep his own 
among them." 

"Unless I am greatly misinformed, many vile and 
reckless men, protected by the privileges to which I 
have referred, and still more the terror which British 
prowess has inspired, are now infesting the coasts of 
China. It may be that for the moment they are 
able, in too many cases, to perpetrate the worst 
crimes with impunity ; but they bring discredit on 
the Christian name ; inspire hatred of the foreigner 
where no such hatred exists ; and, as some recent 
instances prove, teach occasionally to the natives a 
lesson of vengeance, which, when once learnt, may 
not always be applied with discrimination." 

Lord Elgin's words have the greater weight 
from his having been not a British poUtician 
so much as a servant of the Empire. 

One after another these Empires are formed. 
One after another they pass in long procession 
over the scene of history to their inevitable 



78 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

grave. The same end awaited the Empires 
of the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Mede, 
the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman, the 
Frank, the Saracen, the Spaniard, the Bour- 
bon, that of Napoleon. All were artificial, 
and, whatever transient purposes they might 
serve, had in them from the beginning the 
seeds of decay and death. But to the life of 
a nation nature seems to have set no bound. 
It may languish, but it does not expire, and 
one day its vigour returns. 

Spain was once what England is now, the 
mightiest of European nations and the terror 
of the world. She sank into impotence under 
the weight of despotism, a dominant priest- 
hood, and a multitude of dependencies. His- 
torians begin the reign of Philip II. with the 
resounding roll of the kingdoms, provinces, 
colonies, and fortresses of which he was lord 
in all parts of the globe. " He possessed in 
Europe the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and 
Navarre ; those of Naples and Sicily, Milan, 
Sardinia, Roussillon, the Balearic Islands, the 
Low Countries, and Franche Comte; on the 
western coast of Africa he held the Canaries, 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 79 

Cape Verd, Oran, Bujeya, and Tunis; in Asia 
he held the Philippines and a part of the 
Moluccas; in the new world the immense 
kingdoms of Mexico, Peru, and Chili, and the 
provinces conquered in the last years of 
Charles V., besides Cuba, Hispaniola, and 
other islands and possessions ; while mar- 
riage with the Queen of England placed in 
his hands the power and resources of that 
kingdom. So that it might well be said that 
the sun never set in the dominions of the 
king of Spain, and that at the least move- 
ment of that nation the whole world trem- 
bled." It is needless to rehearse the tale of 
decay, ruin, and degradation which is opened 
by this proud page. The vaunted magnitude 
of the Empire was draining away the life-blood 
of the nation. Only since the Empire was 
lost has there been something like a return 
of national life to Spain. 

To British Empire, as to the rest, a term 
is probably set by fate. Its dominions, un- 
like those of Rome, are widely scattered, and 
include, with other varieties and repugnances 
of race, three hundred millions of unassimi- 



80 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

lated and unassimilable Hindoos. England 
is being overstrained in the desperate effort 
to remain, as she was when the other navies 
had been annihilated at St. Vincent, Camper- 
down, Trafalgar and Copenhagen, mistress of 
all the seas. Her people will awake from 
their dream of imposing peace upon the 
world. The military power which she has 
created in Egypt will some day strike for 
itself, and she will retire, leaving, however, 
behind solid monuments of a beneficent ad- 
ministration. The Mediterranean nations will 
assert the freedom of their waters, and Gib- 
raltar, the value of w^hich is already being 
seriously called in question, will return to the 
nation to which it naturally belongs. The 
colonies, following each of them its own des- 
tiny, will become free nations, the genuine 
glory of their parent, still, perhaps, remaining 
united to her by a tie of mutual citizenship, 
so that a Canadian landing in England may 
at once enjoy the British franchise. The 
people will return to peaceful industry, and 
their earnings will no longer be taken from 
them for the objects of a chimerical ambition 



COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 8 1 

and the barren service of war. There will be 
an end of such phrases as " Greater Britain " 
and " Little Englander." It will be seen 
that the true greatness as well as the happi- 
ness of England is not in dominion over 
subject races, but in herself. 



In these last pages the writer may seem to 
have turned aside from his subject. But no 
speculative arguments of his can have half so 
much weight as the lessons of experience ; nor 
is there any experience so apposite or so in- 
structive as that of the British Empire, of all 
Empires the best administered, and on the 
whole the most successful. The tribes of the 
Philippines do not appear to be more tractable 
than the mild Hindoo. That insurrection \ 
among them can find leaders has been proved 
by the career of Aguinaldo. American insti- 
tutions do not lend themselves, like British 
institutions, to the vice-regal government of 
dependencies with a separate civil service, and 
there would be greater danger of political cor- 
ruption. There would also be a far greater 



82 COMMONWEALTH OR EMPIRE 

shock to the principles of the repubhcan than 
there is to those of the monarchical nation. 

The sun of humanity is behind a cloud. 
The cloud will pass away and the sun will 
shine forth again. The aged will not live to 
see it, but younger men will. 



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